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Build Engaging User Communities

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:45:22 +0000

Build Engaging User Communities Effective, efficient collaboration is at the heart of today’s most successful companies. SocialBiz by IntelliTek provides small and mid-market companies with a platform to build engaging user communities for internal collaboration, customer support, sales, marketing, and public relations. Complete the form below to access this White Paper from IntelliTek Systems:

Harmony lets you share Google Docs in Outlook

Ron Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:44:33 +0000

While Google was purchasing DocVerse this week, Mainsoft was releasing a free Beta that lets you access and share Google Docs documents from within Outlook. The tool isn't from Microsoft, but it does put Google Docs users back in the Microsoft ecosystem, so I'm sure it's a tool that must at least make the folks in Redmond smile, especially in light of Google's recent actions.

In addition, users can also access documents found within Microsoft SharePoint from the Harmony pane. It enables users to share a single copy of the document instead of sending attachments to emails, and ensures that participants should have the most up-to-date copy of the document.

Since many business users spend a great deal of their day inside Outlook, this tool could be very useful. After you install Harmony, it creates a new pane in Outlook.

Matt Cain, research vice president and Gartner’s lead email analyst, thinks this tool provides users with a key function that's been missing from email. "We believe the ultimate role of the email client is to aggregate communication and collaboration streams from many modalities into one common interface. In this way, the email client becomes the communication and collaboration master console--a universal queue, so to speak."

Harmony should provide a way to access documents from Google and SharePoint, providing users with a useful service for no cost. At the very least, it's certainly worth trying out and seeing if it works for your organization.

For more information:
- see the Mainsoft press release

Socialtext delivers 4.0

Ron Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:55:06 +0000

Last week, Socialtext, the Enterprise 2.0 company, released version 4.0 of its product, which brings together a number of initiatives they have launched recently, including Socialtext Signals, which is their microblogging tool, and a spreadsheet they created in conjunction with spreadsheet pioneer Dan Bricklin.

Specifically 4.0 includes the ability to:

Create collaborative groups around a project, department or area of common interest,
Send a microblogging message to one of these groups,
Search microblogging traffic to find nuggets of information lost in the information stream,
Filter by group within a Signals stream,
And see who is available (as you can with an instant messaging tool).

Socialtext CEO Eugene Lee says these tools can help increase the likelihood of collaboration and knowledge sharing inside an organization. "Socialtext 4.0 takes that an extra step forward. It allows people to circulate information, ideas and updates in a targeted way with teammates, so they can move quickly to take advantage of new opportunities."

You can purchase 4.0 as a hosted service or as an appliance you install behind the firewall. The product is also accessible on smart phones including the Blackberry, iPhone and Android phones.

A tool like Socialtext can help enterprises looking for new ways to collaborate and share information. These new tools provide the means to narrow the focus of the larger information stream and find the nuggets that are often hidden in the stream and that's a big step forward. At the same time, it provides ways to share information via blogs and Wikis around a single issue that requires more space than a microblogging tools can provide.

The video below explains how Socialtext works in a larger context:

For more information:
- see the Socialtext press release

EMC SourceOne email supervisor monitors email

Ron Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:05:50 +0000

EMC announced this week they were releasing EMC SourceOne Email Supervisor, a tool that can automate email monitoring. This could be especially important for companies which are required by law to monitor email for certain information such as social security numbers or other sensitive data. For instance, U.S. brokerage companies are required to monitor email to make sure employees are complying with appropriate laws and government regulations. This tool makes it easier for these companies to do that by creating a set of rules against which the electronic monitor checks the email.

Sara Radicati, CEO of The Radicati Group believes that it's prudent for all organizations to get a grip on electronic communications. "Supervision of electronic communications has become increasingly important for all industries and business functions and customers should consider it as an essential element of their information governance strategy,” she said. She adds that a tool like this makes the monitoring process easier and more cost-effective.

The tool lets organizations define business policies about which types of information should not be sent in email, then check against the email stream and deliver reports to appropriate management or supervisory personnel. It will even produce a report that offers proof of compliance that an organization can show to government regulators.

Tools like this that help companies comply with government regulations are part of a growing business around eDiscovery and compliance issues. EMC created SourceOne last year as part of an effort to take advantage of this market and provide a set of modular products that companies can pick and choose from to suit their unique requirements.

For more information:
- see the EMC press release

Google sticks it to Microsoft with DocVerse purchase

Ron Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:37:43 +0000

Last week Google purchased DocVerse, a tool that lets multiple users share and edit Microsoft Office documents online. The purchase gives Google a way to bring Office users under the Google Docs umbrella. Google recently made it possible to upload any type of document into Google Docs. DocVerse provides a way to make the Microsoft Office ones (of which there are likely to be many) editable within the Google Docs framework.

As they reported in their blog post announcing the purchase, they understand there are many businesses still committed to using Office documents:

"But we recognize that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So as we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we’re also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office."

And even while Microsoft is making a bigger and bigger play to the cloud (as I wrote recently on DaniWeb in "Microsoft Supposedly Commits to the Cloud"), Google has found a way to undermine that play by making Microsoft's documents work in its environment. It's a brilliant move, and one which should help companies committed to using Office (at least for now) to begin to transition to Google Docs if that's what they plan to do.

You can learn more about how DocVerse works in this video:

DocVerse from Amir Khella on Vimeo.

For more information:
- see the Google Blog post announcing the deal

One on One with Jeff Segarra of Nuance

Ron Miller — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:42:11 +0000

Jeff Segarra is the Director of Product Management for the Imaging Division at Nuance Communications where he leads the team that delivers the company's scanning and business productivity products. We asked Jeff about his company and how it balances the different products it sells.

FCM: You do a lot of things including imaging, speech to text, health solutions and so forth. Do you keep these divisions separate or do they work in tandem?

JS: Nuance is made up of four divisions: (1) Enterprise, providing customer self service and call center applications, (2) mobility, command and control capabilities for mobile and consumer electronics, (3) healthcare, clinical documentation and dictation services, and (4) imaging, PDF conversion, scanning and document management products.

Automating business processes is a common theme that runs through nearly all of our solutions, across all of our divisions. It’s important to note, however, that our divisions only really work in tandem when a customer needs a solution from multiple divisions. Say, for example, that a customer wants to change an ECM research report that is on paper to audio in order to listen while driving. Nuance OmniPage allows you to scan a paper document to Kindle and then Kindle transforms the document to audio using Nuance speech to text technology. There are many other ways our technologies work together to provide valuable offerings for our customers. This is just one example.

FCM: You've been making a lot of purchases lately. What is your long term strategy for the company?

JS: Our strategy is to continue to serve our customers with the most complete solutions possible. Acquisition can be a quick and cost effective option when it allows us to fill a gap in our offerings to better meet our customers’ needs. We consider carefully what the customer needs to be more productive or to save money and then we make a build or buy decision. Sometimes there are technologies available at a price that will work within our business model. Other times, it makes sense to develop the software ourselves.

FCM: What impact have the government Electronic Medical Records directives had on your business?

JS: As a result of the government’s directives, EMR opportunities for our document imaging products are beginning to present themselves. We are seeing more activity in this arena, especially in situations where the customer needs to extract data from paper documents for use in EMR systems. But the most significant impact for our company has been in the area speech recognition solutions for direct dictation into EMR. It all boils down to this: Physicians can speak faster than they can type. Speech to text solutions make doctors more productive, improve the quality of the EMR data and allow them to spend more time with patients.

FCM: What aspect of your business do you see having the most growth opportunities over time?

JS: One of the most promising growth opportunities within our imaging business is to offer sophisticated production capture technologies in products that are easy enough for the average office worker to use. Industry analysts agree that, today, less than 10 percent of office workers use document imaging technologies to automate their document workflows. It’s simply too difficult for the average office worker to use. On the other hand, centralized production capture departments have long used powerful tools to increase productivity, speed workflows and remove the drudgery that comes with processing paper. The key to tapping into this promising opportunity is to make these technologies simple and straight forward to use. Nuance is moving to take advantage of this opportunity.

FCM: There has been a lot of talk that ECM has been an abused term and some have called for document management to be moved into a separate category. Do you agree and does your company have its own DM solution?

JS: Although I understand why some would call for a new document management category, I believe that both document management and document imaging fit appropriately into the category of ECM. This is true even though the category continues to expand and change. There is a very wide continuum of document management software available as part of the ECM market--with varying capabilities, functionality and price points. We describe Nuance PaperPort as document management software because our customers use it to manage paper and electronic documents. With PaperPort, we have chosen to offer powerful document imaging capabilities and lighter document management features, preferring instead to address more sophisticated document management needs through our connectivity to partner systems. The result is a product that hits the sweet spot for users working in a range of settings from home offices to the largest enterprises.

Spotlight: eZ Conference in Berlin

Ron Miller — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:25:41 +0000

eZ Systems, makers of the open source content management system eZ publish, will be holding their annual user conference in Berlin June 24 and 25. The conference will bring together users, developers and speakers from the open source world including Rasmus Lerdorf ("father" of PHP) and David Axmark (Co-Founder, MySQL). In addition to presentations and workshops, members of the eZ team will be there to work with users. Press release

Study: iPhone app usage peaks on evenings and weekends

Jason Ankeny — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:14:46 +0000

iPhone application usage reaches its zenith on nights and weekends according to new data issued by mobile analytics platform Localytics. iPhone app behaviors reach their peak at 9 p.m. ET on weeknights, Localytics reports, adding that usage ramps up slowly over the course of the workday and then tops out when East Coast consumers are at home and their West Coast counterparts are commuting from work. iPhone users generate 7 percent greater traffic on weekends than during the average weekday--Saturday traffic is at its lowest ebb at 6 a.m., but accelerates to over 90 percent of peak usage by 11 a.m., remaining at or near its apex for the duration of the afternoon and evening.

Localytics concludes that while the iPhone is making professional inroads, it remains a personal device for most users, adding that the results of its study bode well for Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet device. According to Localytics, the data suggests that consumers looking for entertainment, trip planning, sports updates and music services are already reaching for devices that are smaller and more convenient than their desktops and laptops, indicating the release of the iPad could further galvanize those behaviors.

For more on the Localytics study:
- see this chart
- read this release

Related articles:
Apple cracks down on adult-themed iPhone apps
App Store project starts triple following iPad frenzy

Windows Phone developers forced to play the waiting game

Jason Ankeny — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:14:09 +0000

Microsoft is serious about making a fresh start in mobile--last week, Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience program manager Charlie Kindel confirmed existing Windows Mobile applications will not run on the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, news a fellow Microsoftie first let slip late last month. "Windows Phone 7 Series is different because we reset everything we were doing to focus on end user experience. This extends directly to the developer platform," Kindel writes on his Windows Phone Development blog. "To enable the fantastic user experiences you've seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos so far we've had to break from the past. To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform we've had to change how phone apps were written. One result of this is previous Windows mobile applications will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series."

Kindel promises that Microsoft and its partners plan to keep delivering and supporting new devices based on the current Windows Mobile 6.5, adding that expertise and familiarity with the software giant's tools are not squandered. "If you are a .NET developer today your skills and much of your code will move forward," Kindel states. "If you are a Silverlight or XNA developer today you're gonna be really happy. New developers to the platform will find a cohesive, well designed API set with super productive tools... Our mission is to help developers go after the next generation of mobile customers with an amazing set of tools and technologies. Developers will be able to bring new kinds of content to more screens and markets faster."

Remaking Microsoft's mobile identity is undoubtedly a positive and necessary move, and new distribution channels and accelerated paths to market are also welcome advances for the Windows Phone developer community. But for now, those developers are in limbo, waiting for the Windows Phone 7 SDK to drop and devices to ship while Windows Mobile 6.5 continues its inevitable slide into irrelevance. Developers are caught between Microsoft's future and its past, with few options for the present--beyond channeling their creativity into applications for rival mobile platforms, that is.

But while it would appear there is little incentive to create or improve consumer applications for Windows Mobile 6.5, enterprise software could pose a viable alternative. Microsoft's Mobile Platform Services Product Management senior director Todd Brix tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that WinMo 6.5 will be positioned as a more affordable workplace solution, with Windows 7 smartphones marketed as a hipper, more expensive consumer product. Time will tell just how long Microsoft will continue actively supporting Windows Mobile 6.5, but giving it a distinct, enterprise-centric raison d'être separate from Windows Phone 7 represents another positive step forward as the company continues to regain its balance. -Jason

Books now outnumber games in Apple’s App Store

Jason Ankeny — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:53:29 +0000

Books now outnumber games in Apple's App Store, marking the first time the games category has failed to dominate total iPhone and iPod touch applications, according to new data issued by mobile advertising exchange Mobclix. As of last week, the App Store boasts more than 26,500 books, representing 18.6 percent of the total 142,000 available applications--the storefront features a little over 25,000 games, or 17.6 percent of all apps. Article